Cholera was first reported in Cameroon in 1971. From 2000–2012, Cameroon reported on average 3,344.2 cases per year. When we divided the country into its four climate subzones (Sudano-Sahelian, Tropical Humid, Guinea Equatorial, and Equatorial Monsoon), there were very different patterns of spatial clustering of health districts with elevated attack rates, as well as differing sets of ecological determinants of cases counts. In the northern Sudano-Sahelian climate subzone, reported cases tended to occur between July and September, during the rainy season; whereas, the southern Equatorial Monsoon subzone reported cases year-round, with the lowest burden during the same rainy season. As cholera displays different epidemiological patterns by subzone, a single approach to controlling cholera for the whole nation does not appear to be viable. Additional prospective epidemiological studies are needed to further elucidate subzone-specific determinants of cholera burden, in order to provide sufficient evidence-based guidance for the formulation and assessment of regionally tailored intervention strategies.

The Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a grant of $1.6 million to study the impacts of land transactions and investments on agricultural production, ecosystem services, and food-energy security in Ethiopia.

Dr. Jane Southworth, chair of the Department of Geography at the University of Florida is leading the project in collaboration with Dr. Arun Agrawal and Dr. Daniel Brown from the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan.

The grant will provide the resources to study the economic, social, and environmental impacts of large-scale land transactions in the African nation of Ethiopia—a region that has witnessed thousands of land transactions, or “land grabs,” which allow foreign investors, including those from the United States, to develop large-scale farms. The research will focus in particular on the outcomes of the investments on agricultural, ecological, and food and energy security. The project will generate new data that will be available for use by other scholars and researchers, build greater research capacity among international collaborators, and produce findings that will support decision making by government agencies, NGOs, and donor organizations.

“This work is vital in our understanding of how international development affects those regional environments and communities especially vulnerable to external control of their resources,” Said Dr. Arun Agrawal. “Our research will provide information that can contribute in real ways to policy decisions that produce more sustainable outcomes.”

“We are using a combination of satellite images, ecological field work, and social surveys to identify when large-scale land transactions generate positive versus negative outcomes,” said Dr. Jane Southworth. “We hope to discover generalizable knowledge about the impacts of land tenure changes on farm-level processes, ecological dynamics, and community well-being to help inform future land use policies.”

“It’s exciting to conduct this study in a region where our findings have the potential to make a real impact,” said Dr. Dan Brown, “ and I am pleased that the importance of this research is recognized by NSF, and in addition, a similar project previously awarded funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).”

The start date of the CNH grant is September 2016, with an estimated end date of August 31, 2020.

Unsustainable hunting threatens both biodiversity and local livelihoods. Three recent publications summarize collaborations of researchers representing an array of institutions working on hunting and wildlife conservation issues in African rainforests including CENAREST (Gabon), University of Buea (Cameroon), Imo State University (Nigeria), University of Pretoria (South Africa), CIFOR, TRAFFIC, UNEP-WCMC, University of Sussex, AWF, WCS, WWF, ZSL, FFI, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, other African NGOs, as well as other European / United States / Japanese universities.

The OFFTAKE database was created in 2013 with the aim of synthesizing studies that quantify the harvest, consumption or transaction of wild species (www.offtake.org; Taylor et al. 2015). The database currently holds data for over 550 sites globally, spanning over four decades of research, providing a resource for analyses at national and regional levels. In order to track changes in offtake, consumption or #### over time, a more systematically selected and regularly monitored set of sites would be desirable, spanning a range of current depletion levels and contextual socio-economic circumstances in both regions. Wild meat researchers and policymakers need to develop indicators that are robust and practical to collect for track wild meat use and measure sustainability in order to inform national and regional policy on wild meat hunting (e.g. Ingram et al. 2015). The OFFTAKE database relies on the generous contributions of hundreds of researchers that have contributed their data. If you have appropriate data that you would be willing to share with us, please get in touch: info@offtake.org.

Two other compilation efforts focus on hunter-gatherers in Congo basin forests. Although numerous alternative terms to “Pygmy” have been used to refer the rainforest hunter-gatherers of the Congo Basin, none have been agreed upon by academics or the people themselves to replace it. Some academics and Central African government officers feel the term Pygmy is derogatory or does not adequately represent the people, but the term Pygmy sensu lato, to refer to all hunter-gatherer groups in Central Africa, is widely used by a broad group of people in Europe, Japan, the United States and Africa. Moreover, international and local NGOs use the term in their titles or literature. Pygmy groups consider themselves, and are judged by their farming neighbors, as the aboriginal people of the Central African forests. They identify closely with the forest, and depend to varying degrees on hunting and gathering wild products from the rainforest ecosystem. Recent legislation in some countries has recognized the rights of “autochthones” (indigenous or first peoples). However, despite such provisions under law, in all countries where Pygmies are found, they are increasingly marginalized, and threatened by disease, displacement, forced sedentarization, and deforestation (Olivero et al. 2016).

The first effort compared data on game harvests from 60 Pygmy and non-Pygmy settlements in the Congo Basin forests, finding that the non-Pygmy population may be responsible for 27 times more animals harvested than the Pygmy population. Non-Pygmy hunters take a wider range of species, twice as many animals per square kilometer, a larger proportion of game with low population growth rates, and sell more bushmeat for profit. The intense competition that may arise from the more widespread commercial hunting by non-Pygmies is a far more important constraint and source of conflict than are protected areas (which may restrict use rights) for Pygmies (Fa et al 2016).

The second effort compiled locational data and population sizes for 654 Pygmy camps and settlements across five countries (Olivero et al. 2016). These data were used to develop spatial distribution models based on the favorability function, which distinguish areas with favorable environmental conditions from those less suitable for Pygmy presence. Highly favorable areas were significantly explained by presence of tropical forests, and by lower human pressure variables. For documented Pygmy settlements, the relationship between observed population sizes and predicted favorability values was used to estimate the total Pygmy population of around 920,000 Pygmies (over 60% in DRC) within favorable forest areas in Central Africa. Fragmentation of the existing Pygmy populations, alongside pressure from extractive industries and sometimes conflict with conservation areas, endanger their future. There is an urgent need to inform policies that can mitigate future external threats to these indigenous peoples’ culture and lifestyles.

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Geography is recruiting a Post-Doctoral Associate positon for Dr. Southworth with her research group to work on (1) time series analysis of remotely sensed and climate data in savanna systems; (2) land grabs in Ethiopia analyzed via remotely sensed data; and (3) land cover analysis in the State of Florida. Dr. Southworth is looking for individuals familiar with remote sensing, GIS and related technologies, with related skills in programming, time series analysis and advanced remote sensing approaches. You must have interest in applying such skills to vegetated systems and an interest in Africa would be desirable, be available for fieldwork in the US and abroad, be able to work independently, be able to lead and collaborate on research articles and potentially on research proposals, be interested in working as part of a dynamic and highly interdisciplinary research team, and be motivated.

Within southern Africa’s savanna ecosystems, woody and herbaceous species have differing growth characteristics that allow a tenuous co-existance. The high dependence of humans on the landscape, through agricultural production, tourism, and natural resource extraction makes understanding savanna vegetation dynamics essential. Studies analyzing resilience of savannas suggest potential state changes in vegetation structure from continuous grasslands with sporadic woody cover to less biologically productive landscapes. One of the biggest questions in this landscape is the impact of climate change. The spatially explicit SAVANNA model is used to analyze the impact of climate change on vegetation cover across Kruger National Park’s (KNP) main land system classifications (Satara, Skukuza, Letaba, and Phalaborwa). Manipulating climate inputs and management regimes allowed us to analyze the resilience of savanna vegetation under multiple Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios. Trends in future climate indicate an increase in temperatures greater than 1.0 °Celsius and a slight decrease in precipitation by 2080. Model results indicate a long-term decrease in multiple size classes of vegetation across all the four land systems. However, the model runs show differing response to climate change between the woody and herbaceous cover types. Spatial trends across the park follow closely with the north-south climate gradient. The most spatially distinct land system was Skukuza, which exhibited some of the highest initial net primary production (NPP) values and also the greatest decreases in NPP into the future. While this region is projected to lose large proportions of its herbaceous and shrub vegetation it is projected to increase in tree green leaf, mostly related to increasing fine leaf vegetation (Acacia sp.). The northern land systems were already dominated by mopane, but under all model scenarios mopane will increase in Letaba and Phalaborwa. This mopane increase will offset the loss of herbaceous and shrub vegetation, resulting in little to no decrease in NPP across time for these land systems. This work illustrates that landscape resilience is not only impacted by the severity of changing climate but the degree to which we manage such systems.

UF’s Center for African Studies’ Natural Resource Management in Africa working group is proud to host Nick Dowhaniuk to speak at our meeting, Thursday, 6 October. He will be discussing “Industrial Oil Development, Human Population Growth, and Post-Conflict Regrowth in Conservation Landscapes” with an emphasis oil development and armed conflict in Uganda in Grinter Hall, Room 471 at 12:45 pm.

Banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW), caused by the recently introduced pathogen Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum (Xcm), is a limiting factor for banana production in Kagera, Tanzania. A region-wide eradication campaign was initiated in 2013. The objectives were to gain insight into the spatial and seasonal occurrences of BXW and into field management practices. In 2015, 135 smallholder farmers were interviewed about BXW and management practices, and their farms were assessed for incidence of the disease. BXW incidence per ward in 2014, obtained from extension offices, and space-time cluster analysis was performed with SaTScan. BXW clusters were detected during rainy but not during dry seasons. These results agreed with the information provided by farmers that the highest incidence of BXW occurred during rainy seasons. Farmers recalled that BXW incidence increased exponentially between 2011 and 2013 but decreased steeply after 2013, coincident with the start of the BXW eradication campaign. However, pathogen transmission continued due to inconsistent sterilization of field tools and exposure of Xcm to rain. Fields of poor farmers are at greatest risk because they borrow tools and are unable to impose some recommended management practices. After the appearance of BXW in individual farms, the number of banana bunches consumed per family per month decreased significantly from 13.1 to 6.4 with a corresponding increase in areas planted to cassava and maize. Based on these findings, we suggest refining the BXW management recommendations, in particular limiting the cutting of BXW-affected plants to dry periods and sterilizing farm tools in fire.

We use data on game harvest from 60 Pygmy and non-Pygmy settlements in the Congo Basin forests to examine whether hunting patterns and prey profiles differ between the two hunter groups. For each group, we calculate hunted animal numbers and biomass available per inhabitant, P, per year (harvest rates) and killed per hunter, H, per year (extraction rates). We assess the impact of hunting of both hunter groups from estimates of numbers and biomass of prey species killed per square kilometre, and by examining the proportion of hunted taxa of low, medium and high population growth rates as a measure of their vulnerability to overhunting. We then map harvested biomass (kg-1P-1Yr-1) of bushmeat by Pygmies and non-Pygmies throughout the Congo Basin. Hunting patterns differ between Pygmies and non-Pygmies; Pygmies take larger and different prey and non-Pygmies sell more for profit. We show that non-Pygmies have a potentially more severe impact on prey populations than Pygmies. This is because non-Pygmies hunt a wider range of species, and twice as many animals are taken per square kilometre. Moreover, in non-Pygmy settlements there was a larger proportion of game taken of low population growth rate. Our harvest map shows that the non-Pygmy population may be responsible for 27 times more animals harvested than the Pygmy population. Such differences indicate that the intense competition that may arise from the more widespread commercial hunting by non-Pygmies is a far more important constraint and source of conflict than are protected areas.